Welcome to the Party, Pal

WRITING IN Slate earlier this week, Eric Lichtenfeld deconstructed the classic "Yippee-kai-yay, motherfucker" line from the original Die Hard and noted that part of its appeal is due to both its homage to action heroes of yore and its in-your-face, throwdown attitude of today. He went on to praise Bruce Willis's absolutely spot-on recitation of the zinger as a reason it's so damn effective:

On either side of the comma, past and present each get four syllables. This balance is manifested in the evenness of Willis' first—and best—delivery of the line. Subtly, he eases off "fucker," the word that, by virtue of its syntactical position, and its very nature, we might expect to land hardest on our ears. That Willis does not employ the same deftness in the sequels is a pity. The phrase is most effective not as a buildup to some hammer punch, but as one seamless unit of defiance.

And there's your explanation for why the film's two previous sequels -- and, from the looks of the commercials the reviews, the just-released sequel -- are so woefully inadequate. Willis plays John McClane in the original as an unsure hero beset by self-doubt and filled with humanity. He beats himself up for not intervening in Takagi's murder, he absentmindedly taps a nudie poster for good luck while skidding through the under-construction top floors at Nakatomi Plaza, he's pissed at his wife over her decision to forge her own path -- all traits that are atypical of action-movie cops. Willis's portrayal lifted Die Hard into a rarefied air of the genre, but by the time the sequels rolled around, McClane's normalcy, at least by film standards, had been replaced by the same tired, cliched cartoon of wisecracking bravado and superhuman feats that make one shoot-'em-up no different than any other. Partly as a result, the movies were nondescript bores, and No. 4 doesn't look a whole lot better. Yippee-kai-yay, indeed.

Comments

[Jason]

While it obviously doesn't hold a candle to the first one - the best action film of all time - the fourth film actually is a solid popcorn flick. It's just too bad that everything got watered down for a PG-13: even his famous line is partially obscured with a gunshot to keep the film from being an R. But in a summer of disappointing sequels, this one was better than it really should have been.